Retirement Day Wednesday!!!
Good morning my sistas!
Well, if you've spent any time on this board with me at all, you know how much I've longed for my husband to retire. HE FINALLY DID IT!!! Today is his official retirement date! OMG. I still can't believe it.
My mind is still buzzing with all the stuff to do and to pack before we leave tomorrow. Actually, we got a huge amount of stuff done yesterday. There's really not all that much left to do today, but what there is is important. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. thinking about it all and couldn't go back to sleep until 6 a.m. Does anyone else do that? I just cannot shut my brain down sometimes.
So, my plan of attack is this: deal with all the clothes and packing suitcases today. Tomorrow morning I will print off all the maps and info from various websites that I want to take with me and organize it in a folder. And transfer any files I need to be sure and have on my laptop.
I absolutely HATE all the TSA restrictions on packing liquids, don't y'all? I want to take my shampoo, I want to take my aloe vera gel, I want to take my various sunscreens and hairsprays and lotions. WHY ON EARTH CAN'T I TAKE THESE??? Stupid terrorists! It sure does make packing for a month long trip a challenge.
But aside from toiletries, I think I have my clothes lined out in pretty good order. I'm taking 2 pair of capris, 3 pair of shorts and a variety of tops that will mix and match between them. I'll wear a skirt on the plane so that I'll have one "dressy" outfit if I need it.
Now don't laugh at me, but I'm absolutely worthless without my down filled pillow. I just cannot sleep on those foam pillows. They give me a crick in my neck and a headache. So I brought back two old feather pillows from our lake house in East Texas and I crammed them into one of those space bags and sucked all the air out of it with the vacuum cleaner hose. (can we say run-on sentence?) Anyway, I got it all nice and compact and packed away in the bottom of our checked bag. I will have to sacrifice the pillows at the end of the month and leave them in Belize, but at least I'll sleep well while we are there. Tee hee!
Well, I'm getting a late start today, so I'd better quit playing around on the computer and get busy. Love you all!
Vickie
Oh how well I know about packing for a month!!!!!! I hate it!
Vickie i quit taking my laptop on the plane. I just take my Ipad or now it will be the Google cause it has internet in it. Tsa doesnt make u take the tablet out!!!!
as for shampoo and stuff like that u have to put that in your checked bag.
We usually just travel by car so I just throw all that stuff in a bin in the way back.
Im flying to Denver again on May 30 for a few days. Im going to take hardly anything!!!!! Im a little bit upset this time cause I have two layovers! One in Charlotte Nc and Dallas. I dont want to carry much!
I was supposed to go see a friend in Lake City Fl about 230 miles frim here. But they r predicting bad rain storms and I-10 is closed due to flooding. Sp im stating close to home!
Well the coffee pot is calling my name!
Carla
Hi Vickie and Carla and my OFF family to come:
Vickie, since I got my replacement knees, I absolutely hate air travel. I get the full patdown. And I have to stand there and wait for them to do it. No sitting. Now, my knee replacements aren't the greatest and it hurt for me to stand too long. So it's uncomfortable all around. Plus, I can't stretch out my legs at all in the airplane. So I'd rather drive anywhere I'm going. I know that limits my travel options, but then I don't have a lot of money anyway.
My one and only vacation this year will be to go to Chicago in June for mom's 90th birthday. I'll spend two days in the Chicago area (I'll have to stay in a motel because there's no place at mom's and no place at any other family member's home ... other brother lives 3 hours away, would never ask my sister and my niece has a full house with two kids). Unless one of my cousins offers, I'm on my own. That's a $120 bill for two days (not bad for the O'Hare area and a LaQuinta). Then my brother and I are going to Springfield, Ill., land of Lincoln trip ... we've been to the Lincoln Museum once but there's a whole lot of other stuff Lincoln related ... Lincoln home, Lincoln tomb, New Salem, etc. Plus, I also found some wineries ... yup, I'm in charge of finding booze-related places (also some brew pubs). Gary used his time share points and traded them for Comfort Inn hotel downtown ... looks nice. Won't cost us any lodging but we'll have to pay for food, etc. We'll go from Monday to Friday, use our own cars to drive there and then I'll drive home (4-hour drive to Evansville). So that's my big trip. Gary has actually gotten us our own rooms for three of the days.
My other big news was I got a deal on a Kindle Fire HD ... I had $50 in Amazon gift cards and it was $89, so it didn't cost me as much. I should get it Friday. Been wanting a tablet ... I know, it's not an iPad, but I couldn't afford that. This will do for now.
I am recovering from my neck shot ... had a really bad headache most of yesterday and today but I think a lot of that was from the barometric pressure ... seems like we're getting rain soon.
My friend Richard is picking me up at 3 p.m. so I can get my car back. Don't know what we'll do after that.
Have a good day.
I have two nights for $139.10 at the LaQuinta O'Hare one person June 7-9 AARP rate, king bed. I go through their website on their LaQuinta rewards program. Love LaQuinta ... nice, clean rooms, free breakfast and if you have to bring your pet, it's free, too. This place is just a little more expensive than the crappy hotels on Mannheim nearer to my mom. This isn't all that far. Hate to pay the money but there's no room at mom's anymore other than to sleep on the couch, and my body won't put up with it. So I pay the money.
Good morning Vickie, Carla and everyone....
Vickie ...I am so excited for you!! Hope you can get things all done in time. It sounds like you are pretty organized!
I agree...the almost month I was gone, I missed my pillow so much. I love my down pillows!! I was lost without them...lots of headaches too. Good idea using the space bag!!
Carla....probably good that you aren't taking that trip. The weather there doesn't sound good either!
As for me.....I am waiting for my cleaning fairy to get here. She is such a sweet gal. I will only have her for about another month. She will be done with school then. They already have someone else ready to replace her....thank goodness!
I was at the hospital for about 3 hours this morning. My sister just lays there and says she feels sick. They feel sorry for her. I laughed because she sure ate her lunch in a hurry when they left the room!! They keep telling her to start moving or she will be in worse pain and her body will be all locked up. She doesn't listen very well. Good news....she can't get in at the Sub Acute by me....YAY!!!
I am staying home the rest of the day. It is still so rainy and windy here again today. I don't handle that weather very well.
Vickie...I miss you already!!
Have a beautiful day everyone!
Prayers for our OFF family.
Love and many hugs to all....connie d
Oh, Connie, your sister is a piece of work! I'm glad you can laugh.
Well, I'll tell you: I could get a lot more packing done if it wasn't for Butch Poe! Why is it a grown man who is literally a world traveler suddenly can't pack his own bag??? LOL! It's "Baby, where's my {shirt, shorts, hat}?", "Can you fold this shirt for me?", etc. Either that OR I catch him doing some totally unrelated thing to packing and getting ready to leave. Like I found him taking apart his electric fish knife earlier. I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I've been needing to fix this." AARRRGGGHHH! It's like herding cats.
But I'm listening to Jimmy Buffet and a Caribbean steel drum band on Pandora Radio and I'm already in vacation mode. I just need an umbrella drink in both hands.
I did manage to get all of my clothes in my carry-on bag. Whew! I got everything I thought I wanted to take in there, so good!
I'm going to miss you, too, Connie, but hopefully I'll be able to post. I'm counting on it. I would miss everyone terribly if I couldn't check in! But it may just be on FB. You never know.
Love you!
Vickie
Connie, I'm laughing right with you about your sister not getting into sub-acute care near you. Good! Let her family take care of her. They should ... they didn't want to take care of you.
I got my car back and did a little shopping after driving Richard back home. He took my garbage out to the dumpster for me. That was the end of that trip. Got some cards and a cake mix/frosting ... promised a coworker I'd make him a cake for his birthday, which was last week, and I forgot. So I picked it up on the way home ... chocolate of course, but buttercream frosting so it's not chocolate overload.
Well, I need to get baking. Won't take long at least. Have a good day.
Vic....HAPPY HAPPY VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND REMEMBER DO NOT SWIM OR SOAK!!!!!!!! Enjoy that beautiful vacation as much as possible!!!!! I am soooooooo jealous!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
Well we had some nasty weather come through here last night OMG!!!!!!! The rain came in sideways and blew through just right so we did NOT flood!!!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!! Then after all this happened the tornado warnings came out for areas just past us!!! WOW!!!! So we are all OK!!!!
Got my office pc back online just before we locked up last night. Was online yet this morning. WOW!!! Learned how to use my NEAT scanner today finally!!! This is ANOTHER one I actually HATE!!! Its a cool piece to use but to scan a lot at one time. NO. Home use ok not office in my opinion. But that is me. Nobody.
Looking like more rain again...Bandit wants out for potty walk so best get going.
Connie happy that your sister can't get in to your building...seems GOD IS watching over you!!! :-)
OK need to go.......or should I say Bandit needs to go?? LOL
Thoughts and Prayers for ALL that need them!!!
HUGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
